


A Study of Cyan

by Crowsister



Series: Meddling Metas [5]
Category: DCU (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Ada has a lot of emotions all the time, Batman shows up to be a mentor-ish figure, F/M, speculative tabletop fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 00:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17756378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister
Summary: After facing a Hulk, Ada has a series of thoughts about she might be a little in love with her boyfriend.





	A Study of Cyan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SuperKamiGodEspurrOfMan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperKamiGodEspurrOfMan/gifts).



> Kind of inspired by World War Hulk, have this bit of fluff I wrote while I’m low key suffering at Disney World with my awful family.

Her boyfriend’s powers were...not entirely random, but definitely had their own rule set that didn’t always  _ seem _ like the most fitting. He survived things. That’s what Armando did — he could stop bullets with him turning to jelly, breathe underwater with gills, ignore exhaustion (he didn’t sleep. Ever), and pretty much anything you can think of. She’d even seen him ingest bullets into his skin and  _ eat  _ them (well, eat wasn’t the right term, “turn them into nutrients”, but “eat” was the closest she was gonna get in this panicked mindset).

So when the massive grey-green humanoid monster thing took  _ one _ look at him and he disappeared, Ada was understandably freaked out. She followed orders as best as she could under the circumstances, pouncing and giving readouts with Flynn. But she could feel herself freak out about Armando because she had no idea what his powers did to him. Turn him to dust? Make him invisible? Invisible  _ and  _ intangible?

They got their asses kicked very hard, but even after the thing  _ escaped _ , Armando didn’t show back up. She let herself get patched up, but after that she immediately started pacing around the base.

“You need to go home.”

Ada paused, looking to Batman. “I’m not leaving. I lost a brother this month: I’m not losing Darwin too.”

“This work is loss-”

“I understand that, sir,” she replied. “But it’s not loss until it’s confirmed. This work is also hope. That’s why I’m a Guardian. So I’m going to wait here because this is the first place I can hear news from. I can call my parents and say I’m sleeping over at Wanda’s.”

Bat-stares were something she was getting used to. The feeling of being scanned and analyzed. Ada kept her composure, giving a classic Cat’s Eye head tilt to go along with her returning stare.

Batman slowly nodded. “Okay. Don’t aggravate your injuries.”

“I won’t.”

He turned and left. After she’d called her parents, Ada busied herself with filling out files, putting Flynn’s data into the database. The creature had incredibly dense skin, similar to Superman’s in makeup according to Flynn and this was the second time in a month that Armando was almost (hopefully wasn’t dead, couldn’t be, she  _ won’t _ let herself think that yet, so almost, still almost) removed from her life. She shook her head, typing again. The creature displayed incredible strength, not limited to any part of the body, suggests a highly efficient and effective muscular system and she still hasn’t told Armando that she loves him. Ada paused, blinking slowly.

“Let’s review that, shall we?” She muttered to herself, pulling back from the keyboard.

She didn’t know what being in love was like. She’d only been dating him for five months, known him for a couple years. The eternal question was how did people know when they were in love. She knew that a lot of people couldn’t pinpoint when they first fell. If she was in love, it probably happened...last year. She’d been studying at the base, knowing she’d get away with staying up later and cramming more at the base than at home. Ada smiled to herself, remembering how she woke up on the couch with the smell of coffee coming from the kitchenette. He’d made it just how she liked it (two sugars and a splash of milk) and she nearly kissed him then.

Should’ve kissed him then. But it’d been gradual. Books usually made it sound like they walked off a cliff, hence “falling” in love, but Ada didn’t think she’d been dramatic as that. Yes, three months before they’d started dating he’d made a terrible pun during a mission (she had gotten tripped by one of Penguin’s stupid windup birds and Armando had caught her with a “I see you’re falling for me” joke) and she still got flustered by being reminded by that instance but that didn’t indicate a “fall”. Sure, she’d made great strides in dealing with the bullying at the Academy thanks to him standing up for her, Armando helped her bring out strength she already had against those idiots and once let her basically make out with him in front of Thomas Ellison to make a point (the point being that she was in a relationship and no, they weren’t pretending). Okay, maybe watching him be gentle and good with Tug made her feel like pudding. So maybe she had been dramatic with it, but “fall” still wasn’t right. It had been like...

“I refuse to make the cat in a tree metaphor,” Ada muttered, spinning in her chair. “I...but if the shoe fits? He’d like it.”

It was like she’d been stuck in a tree and he coaxed her down, branch by branch, until she’d made the choice to jump. That was more accurate than “falling”, it acknowledged her choice in it. She had jumped into his arms and had never regretted the choice to jump. He could’ve chosen to let her go, could’ve stopped all of his effort towards her once he had her, could’ve been lying about himself the whole time. But he hadn’t. He was so wonderful. She was letting herself indulge in the cat-tree metaphor, she could privately indulge in her poetic side to help her analyze this.

Sometimes, he looked at her and it was like bathing in sunlight. She could tell, sometimes, when he was looking at her with that feeling, even when she couldn’t see him (she wondered if that was from the cat anima and if so, did Selina feel similarly with Batman? It’d help explain her escape statistics, if she could sense when he was looking at her). It was easier to keep centered with him in the room, easier to focus. Ada adored curling up near him or on him with a book or file for that, especially if he decided to run his fingers through her hair while she was reading.

Okay, okay, okay, so she was in love with him. That was kind of dangerous, yeah? Maybe she should’ve thought of that before starting to date him. She wasn’t going to be his Juliet, killing herself on his alter. Ada refused point-blank. He wouldn’t ask that of her, either. Safe to assume the opposite.

Batman was right: this work was loss. She focused upon the hope and faith of it, but it was easy to lose people and your own self in it. Before she let herself get further into this: could she handle losing Armando?

She looked at the monitor, seeing no alerts from the League. Pretty relevant question, considering that she wasn’t entirely sure if Armando was  _ alive _ . But it’d been a pretty constant question since the start of this. Constantly preparing for it to be over, first as a joke then because of her own missteps, then because he’d find someone better, then because the work. She didn’t  _ want  _ to live without him in her life, but she could.

Ada relaxed in her chair. “Okay, okay, okay. It’s fine. This is fine, this is...enlightening, this is...this is nice. This is kind of the goal, isn’t it? Mission success, it’s happened, it happened before it even started and he’ll have a giggle over that. This is fine.” It felt like the room was on fire, but this was fine. She pulled up her legs to her chest, running a hand through her hair. 


End file.
